Timely Conflict
by Simple-Minded Idiot
Summary: Boy from the future gets girl from the past. Boy from the future goes to past. Boy from the future gets surprised. Girl from the past is really... a boy from the past. A not so much epic tale of boy meets boy and things happening in between. NaruSasuNaru
1. Chapter 1

Partially dedicated to **Nozomi-sama**. Why partially? Because this isn't exactly what she's hoping from me. Why dedicate it to her? Because it was her birthday, uh, two - three weeks ago.

Also dedicated, somewhat, and a bunch of thanks to **Kaikouken **and **Lisea18** for helping me out.

* * *

Chapter 1 – That Odd Boy 

"So then, you mean to say that we have to get this person," Naruto repeatedly jabbed a picture with his index finger as he spoke, "in order to be able to decipher what your tablet means?"

"Yes," Kakashi nodded. "There are also many other things that Namikaze Shikibu would be able to help us with. She would–"

"So why don't you go and get that Nami-person then?!"

Sakura sighed.

"You haven't even done anything to help us at all, Naruto, and yet you're complaining at this chance?" she asked.

Naruto gasped.

"You're so cruel, Sakura-chan!" he said.

He received a punch to the head soon afterwards.

"Okay, okay! I get the idea," he said, sounding very much forced at that. "I'll go and get your translator."

"You are aware, Naruto, that that person... is your ancestor," Kakashi said, "and that there was already ramen during then."

"Yeah, yeah, I've been told."

He briskly walked away, probably on the way to the travel office in order to get a time portal permit.

Sakura bit her lip.

"Was it really alright to have said that, Kakashi-sensei?" she asked.

Kakashi shrugged after a few minutes.

* * *

Muffled sobs could be heard behind a door. Sasuke put his hand on the groove of the door that played as the handle, ready to push it, only to be stopped by Itachi. 

"Mother is foolish, little brother," Itachi said with those ever-so-blank eyes of his. "Do not grow up like her. She has become far too enraptured with our father."

Sasuke's face contorted into one that suggested confusion. Itachi merely walked away.

* * *

Her skin had a bluish tint to it when he saw her. 

A rope tied to a tree was around her neck. Her feet were dangling. Her mouth was open and blood was slowly trickling out of it. Her eyes were so impossibly wide.

Sasuke just looked at his mother. A few minutes later, his brother was standing beside him. A second after that, his brother was on the tree and cutting the rope as if it was an everyday thing.

Then again, the bloodstains in one of their gardens still hadn't been cleaned. Most of it still seemed fresh albeit the others had dried up a bit, coating the plants rather nicely.

The smell of a rotting corpse would instantly invade his nose whenever he went there, so Sasuke preferred not to go to that place.

There was a loud thud when their mother fell to the floor. Sasuke's ears twitched as he heard what seemed to be bones cracking.

"You're going to have to be like mother, Sasuke," Itachi said. "The clan orders you to."

* * *

Seven years later and the Lady of the House of Uchiha was more than coveted in their lands. And today, men would have to forget about her beauty as she was to be married to the heir of the House of Namikaze, a boy named Naruto. 

Men had died in the process of winning her hand in marriage. Some lost their lives while doing the duties her clan had told to do in order to marry her, while others had simply killed themselves, not being able to handle the shame of it all. Her clan had been particularly strict as to who would be able to get the sister of their heir. They didn't mind that many people died.

It had been such a surprise to many that Lord Minato's son had suddenly gone off to try and get Lady Uchiha to be his wife. As far as everyone knew, the boy had been interested in marrying the daughter of Lord Haruno.

Everyone was even more surprised when he'd managed to finish all of the tasks that the Uchiha laid out for him.

When asked why he wanted to marry the Uchiha _heiress_ – in a way, she was the heiress – Naruto had merely grinned and said, "I felt as if I needed to do some good in the world."

That had been one of the most perplexing things he had ever said in his whole life. And he had been quite the simple person to start with.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Sasuke," Itachi said to his brother before he went out of the room. 

Sasuke didn't pay heed to his brother's words. He simply looked at the mirror, scrutinizing his reflection.

His lips were red and his face was as white as the robes he was wearing. His dark lashes were long. His dark-colored hair was in a complicated bun that was adorned by a pretty and expensive-looking hair ornament. All in all, he looked very pretty. Much like a woman.

Much like his mother had been.

He was going to get married and his... soon-to-be-husband didn't even know that he was a man.

He stood up and made his way to the door where he was met by several ladies-in-waiting.

* * *

His husband was so odd. That was what Sasuke thought after his first week of living with Namikaze Naruto. 

Naruto was currently sitting on the small, wooden pier that led to the lake right outside the Namikaze Compound with his pants all rolled up until his knees. He wore no jacket – Sasuke supposed that the man would get a cold tomorrow. His hands, which he was using for support, were on his sides and a little behind him. His legs were swaying and his feet were submerged in the water, making quite the commotion on the quiet lake. He was looking at the moon with a wistful look on his face.

Sasuke, wearing his elegant kimono and a somewhat heavy jacket, approached Naruto.

"I am worried, Namikaze-sama," he said, "that you might get a cold. Please come inside."

Naruto looked at Sasuke with that grin that was always on his stupid – or so it seemed to Sasuke – face.

"It's alright!" he said. "Hey, why don't you sit beside me? You're wearing a jacket so you won't get cold."

Sasuke had his doubts, but soon swallowed them. A wife was supposed to be obedient to her husband. He could not shame his family's name.

He had to keep up with this charade.

He sat beside Naruto in the traditional style, seiza.

"You're so uptight, you know?" Naruto said after a bit of silence.

Sasuke blinked and then looked at him.

"I wouldn't want," he continued and looked at Sasuke once again, "my wife to be like that."

"What kind of wife, then, would Namikaze-sama want me to be?" Sasuke asked.

"Call me Naruto! And cook me this delicacy that came from China! Yes, that one. I think they called it _shina soba_ or something."

"_Lamian_?... Or perhaps was it _lamien_?"

Naruto vigorously nodded.

"Well, whatever they call it, I like it a lot!" he exclaimed. "I'd like my wife to know how to cook those."

By this time, he was making a lot of hand gestures.

"Shina soba is not something that they taught us to cook," Sasuke said. "Rather, they said that it was... a disgraceful food. Food fit only for the Chinese renegades and the Japanese who live in the poor, the slum areas."

"You Uchiha are too... judgmental and stuff," Naruto said.

Sasuke raised his head a bit more, obviously feeling rather offended.

"I'm sorry," Naruto quickly said, all the while rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "I really didn't mean it that way."

"What other way, then, did Namikaze-sama mean it?" Sasuke asked, still not feeling particularly forgiving.

"I thought I told you to call me Naruto? And I don't know. I guess it just came out, you know?"

This man, his husband, really was a rather impulsive character. Sasuke didn't know how things would fare from then on.

"Namikaze-sama should watch out his words. They could be used against him," Sasuke said.

"Shikibu... you worry too much," Naruto said. "Take it easy, why won't you?" He then grinned at his bride.

Sasuke looked at the sky.

He couldn't find it in him to meet those astoundingly blue eyes.

* * *

"What then, will Namikaze-sama do?" Sasuke asked. 

His back was facing Naruto. He was sitting on his bed – a contraption that had been shown to them by the Chinese – and his back was bare.

His secret had been revealed.

Silence reigned in the bedroom.

"Regardless... regardless of gender, you're still the Shikibu that I married and that I did all those things for," Naruto said softly. "So nothing's changed. Nothing at all."

Sasuke clutched the folds of his kimono. His hands were shaking. That man...

"Namikaze-sama is an idiot," he said, his voice having a slight tremor to it.

He felt relieved. Very relieved that his clan wouldn't be shamed by his foolish actions, by his slacking wariness to his surroundings.

"And didn't I tell you to call me Naruto?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke took a deep breath that made him shudder.

"If... if you're a-a-a man," Naruto started a few minutes later, "then Shikibu isn't your name, isn't it? What is it?"

"It's Sasuke," Sasuke said, "my name is Sasuke."

"Sasuke," Naruto tested. Then he brightly grinned – Sasuke didn't need to turn around to know that that was what the man was doing – and said, "I like it. And I want to be the only one who'll call you with it."

* * *

It was autumn that day that Naruto made a rip in his coat. He was sitting on the floor and leaning on a sturdy-looking shoji door. His legs occupied the length of the hallway. He could feel the wind caressing his feet. He could see the vastness of his family's garden. It was really peaceful. 

Secretly, Naruto didn't like that kind of peace. It was so _deafening_.

He soon heard soft footsteps.

Sasuke sat down, traditional and formal as ever, and placed the tea tray beside him. He poured himself and Naruto some tea.

"What is... that?" Sasuke asked, holding his cup firmly in his left hand with right hand lightly touching the base of the cup.

He had been taught how to stand high tea temperatures at a young age. Naruto, when he had first seen Sasuke handle such things without looking uncomfortable, had been immensely surprised and somewhat entertained.

"My coat," Naruto said, stopping his _ministrations_ on the coat to look at his wife. "It ripped and now I'm fixing it."

"How... how does Namikaze-sama do it?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto blinked. Sasuke blinked, too. A moment of silence stretched through their surroundings yet again.

"I wonder what kind of man would've taken a wife that didn't know how to sew," Naruto pondered as he stitched up the little rip in his coat.

"Anyone would take a female that has a large dowry," Sasuke replied, feeling a bit ticked off that he couldn't sew while Naruto could.

"Our family never needed your dowry."

"Why, then, did you not examine or assess my household skills before you took me?"

Naruto grinned at that. He could never make Sasukes say, "Naruto", so a "you" would be sufficient... for now.

"I wouldn't have minded if my own wife didn't know how to do household stuff," Naruto said, "because I already know how to do them myself."

Sasuke quirked an eyebrow at that.

"Why _did_ you marry me in the first place, Namikaze-sama?" he asked. "I've heard that you've been running after Lady Haruno."

Naruto tugged the thread with his mouth, biting it along the way, until it snapped. He then placed his coat and those other things that he used to fix his coat away. He looked at Sasuke.

"I won't chase after Sakura-chan anymore," he said, "because she loves someone else."

"I presume that you and Lady Haruno are close," Sasuke said.

"We're childhood friends."

"Who is this person that Lady Haruno would choose over you? I am not... quite that sure that there is any better clan than that of the Namikaze to marry into."

"It's not all about status, Sasuke. Not at all."

"If it wasn't for status, why did you marry me? You hold none of these _feelings_ for me and you have never seen what I looked like before."

Naruto grinned.

"Are you jealous that I love someone else?" he asked in a teasing manner.

Sasuke chose not to give a response and merely took a sip of his tea, its scalding warmth making him forget about the idiot that was his husband.

"Well, don't be," Naruto continued. "I don't love Sakura-chan anymore. I shouldn't love her. And I have to love you right now."

"You make it sound like a task," Sasuke said.

"It's my duty."

Sasuke took a sip of his tea yet again.

"And I find it insanely easy to love you," Naruto said, "that it's almost become a habit."

Sasuke sipped his tea again. This time, his lips were pressing on the rim of the porcelain cup. He didn't at all mind that the tea was making his lips red and bruised.

"You know... you're going to choke if you keep on drinking that way."

"Namikaze-sama should stop sprouting nonsense," Sasuke said, putting his teacup back on the tea tray and looking at Naruto with a serious look on his face.

"Doesn't it really hurt?" Naruto asked as he inched closer to Sasuke, seemingly not hearing the earlier response.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow.

Naruto placed his hand on the spot on the floor close to Sasuke's left leg, being extra careful to avoid the tea tray nearby. His right hand was placed under Sasuke's right ear in the way that he seemed to be lightly cupping the area. He softly touched and rubbed red lips.

"That?" he breathed.

"No, it doesn't," Sasuke said.

Naruto really knew how to change the mood, didn't he?

Naruto's hand dropped from its place on Sasuke's face.

"Nothing excites you," Naruto said.

Sasuke's heart hammered in his chest. And after that day, he had never asked why Naruto married him.

* * *

"I was already going to call you... call you Naruto," Sasuke whispered, his voice sounding very much hoarse. 

He wasn't crying. He wasn't crying at all.

"Naruto, Naruto, Naruto, Naruto," he said over and over again.

An innocent piece of paper lay crumpled on the floor.

"You really are an idiot, Naruto," he said. "You said that you'd come back and that you never broke promises."

The somewhat shrill yet low scream of Sasuke's was carried throughout the manor.

Lord Minato looked out of the window. He couldn't bear to listen to all of it.

* * *

The next thing Naruto knew was that he was falling. And then he heard a splash. Suddenly, he couldn't breathe. He choked on water. He thrashed a bit before he got his bearings and was able to rise from the water and get some air. 

That time portal really could be some fucked-up piece of shit.

Or maybe the portal folks just didn't like him.

Naruto looked at his surroundings – he was at a bathroom, it seemed – and his eyes met dark-colored ones that were owned by a long-haired boy that wore a white nagajuban.

* * *

"Na... mi... kaze-... sama..." Sasuke whispered as he looked at the blond boy. 

That was the same face, the same hair as Namikaze Naruto. Those were the same warm and mischievous blue eyes that his and _only_ his Naruto had.

"Eh?" the boy asked. "Namikaze? No."

The boy even had the same voice as his supposedly late husband. That boy just _had_ to be Naruto.

"But I am looking for Namikaze Shikibu," the boy said.

"Don't joke with me!" Sasuke exclaimed. "You know well that I'm Shikibu. I'm... I'm your wife."

"You're a _guy_!"

"That's not funny, Namikaze-sama."

"Why do you keep calling me Namikaze-sama?!"

"Because that's who you are so just _stop_ acting as if you aren't."

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Don't lie like that. It's not... It's not funny at all! I... I really did think that you'd died. I was so sad. Everyone was so sad. It hurt so much. I can't explain it at all."

Sasuke dropped to his knees and then plopped on the ground. He really couldn't believe it. Right in front of him... was Naruto. _His_ Naruto. And Naruto was even _joking_ with him – albeit it really wasn't funny and that Sasuke was just about ready to punch the living daylights out of him.

"Look, you, I'm not Namikaze-sama or whoever he is. I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I come from the future and I'm looking for Namikaze Shikibu who's a _woman_. Not some boy," Naruto said.

"Do you take me for a fool, Namikaze-sama?" Sasuke asked, obviously getting angrier by the second.

"I keep telling you that I'm not this _Namikaze-sama_! I might be this person if my father's parents weren't so fucked-up in the head, but I'm not! I'm Uzumaki Naruto! Uzumaki!"

Naruto started to breathe deeply and heavily after his outburst. Sasuke merely stared at him, most likely assessing him, trying to see if he was saying the truth.

And how much did Sasuke want it to _not_ be the truth.

"There is no such surname. The one that you present me with," Sasuke said.

Naruto snorted and said, "That's because I come from the future."

"The... future? What is that?"

"Well, it's– Oh, shit."

He clamped his mouth shut and viciously shook his head from side to side. He had been a big idiot. He wasn't allowed to go around saying that he was from _the future_. At least not to people that he was supposed to associate with or bring back to the future with him.

"What is this future that you speak of... Uzumaki-san?" Sasuke asked when the so-called intruder failed to answer for a few more minutes.

"Just show me where Namikaze Shikibu is, okay? I'm really not up to all of this right now," Naruto said.

Oh how he hoped that no one from the watch tower was looking over the monitors. He could get in some real trouble if they found out that he'd been blabbering about the future to someone from the past.

"Have I not just told you that I _am_ Namikaze Shikibu?" Sasuke asked, feeling mildly irritated.

"WHEN WILL YOU STOP WITH THAT?!" Naruto exclaimed, his voice reverberating.

He fished the picture of Shikibu that he had and threw it to Sasuke who deftly caught it.

"Namikaze Shikibu is a woman. A _woman_. W-O-M-A-N," he said.

Sasuke stared at the picture with awe in his eyes. The picture was _colored_.

"Yes, and this is me," he said after a few more minutes of staring at the wondrous thing that the intruder gave him.

"That's a girl, idiot," Naruto said.

"I look like this person, do I not?"

"She could be a relative of yours. Your twin, even!"

Then they heard two curt knocks. Sasuke went and peered through the second and innermost door of his bathroom.

"What is it?" he asked.

It was always harder to control his voice when he was in the bathroom.

"Is all well, Shikibu-sama?" A woman's voice filtered through their ears.

Needless to say, Naruto was shocked.

"Yes," Sasuke said, "it's alright. You may go now."

They heard the lady walking away from the vicinity.

Sasuke faced Naruto with a somewhat smug look on his face.

"... ly shit," Naruto said. "I didn't know that Japan was fucked-up even before the twentieth century."

After a few more minutes, he had come to the decision that he was here to finish his mission. To bring Namikaze Shikibu back to Hatake Kakashi. And if that boy really was Namikaze Shikibu, then he, the great Uzumaki Naruto, had no other choice than to present that boy to Kakashi.

He rose from the large tub and walked to where Sasuke was.

"Good evening, Namikaze Shikibu," he said in what he thought was a cool voice, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto and I'm supposed to bring you back to my superior, Hatake Kakashi."

Sasuke stared at Naruto, most likely bewildered.

Naruto made a wide grin, a mischievous and seemingly carefree grin, that was so reminiscent of his husband that Sasuke stepped closer to him with a wanton look on his face that Naruto didn't see.

"And I'm going to take you there," Naruto started.

In a blink of an eye, Naruto grabbed his arm and was running towards one of the walls.

"NOW!" he continued.

And then they were gone.

_Supposedly to be continued..._

* * *

I just _know_ that someone will go around complaining, "Hey, why's this person writing another story when s/he/it hasn't updated the other ones yet?!" I couldn't help it. Not at all. This idea has been chewing my mind for a very long time. 

Please do try and comment on certain aspects of the story. From grammar to, er, plot. Especially on the last part as I've written it while having the most dreadful of headaches. This is the last time I'm carving anything. (I should've remembered that the same thing happened to me while I was working with clay before)

But never fear! Sasuke was meant to be that way... at first. If it's possible, there shall be character development!... And isn't this a great subject change?


	2. Chapter 2

I feel amazed. I actually got out a new chapter!

An update. For New Year and all.

Will be jamming in the whole AN here at the top.

Thanks to all who've managed to find or give the time to read this.

Comments, as always, would be appreciate. Point out grammatical mistake, plot holes, and everything else you seem to think is wrong. It helps me improve.

And, uh, unanswered reviews? ... It's either I've skipped over it in my mail box because of my great eyesight or... I was busy. But I appreciate each and every single one. I swear. I'm even surprised that I've managed to hit that number of reviews.

* * *

**Chapter 2 – Those Unfamiliar Surroundings**

The air seemed to be choking him more than keeping him alive. His lungs were on fire. His hands were clawing his neck, his chest. It hurt so much to breathe. He could faintly hear voices. Loud ones, calm ones, worried ones.

The only thing common about them was that he couldn't understand them at all. Not at all. Not even snippets of words or anything of the sort. It all seemed like gibberish.

He supposed that the idiot that had so rudely grabbed his arm and presented him to this horrible place where the... the air was killing him was the one who was talking loudly. Shouting, to be more exact.

"You could've told me!" Naruto exclaimed.

"We were just about to tell you – you just burst in all of a sudden!" Sakura shrilly said, most likely panicking.

"Now, now, you two," Kakashi said, "who's in control of the oxygen in this room today?"

"It's-it's... Hinata, I think. Oh shit. His eyes are fucking _rolling_!"

"Can't you do something, Sakura-chan?!" Naruto asked.

"Oh god, he's turning _blue_ now! _Blue_, dammit!" was Sakura's intelligent response to his question.

Kakashi brandished a phone and dialed Hinata's number. He seemed to be the only one in the room who'd kept his cool. As expected of him.

"Hello?" he asked. "Hinata-san. Nice to hear you!"

"Enough with the pleasantries, dammit!" Sakura said.

She glared at Kakashi, and then at Naruto, and then she looked at the person whom Naruto had brought back form the past. She was utterly torn apart. It was all so very _sudden_. She was usually composed and could think rationally even on grave situations that popped up in front of her, this seemed rather different for some inexplicable reason.

She loathed not being in charge.

"Uh, yes, Hinata-san, could you do a... 1930 to 1960 change in the oxygen here?" Kakashi asked. "It would be of much help. Our visitor is a new one and can't handle 2050 oxygen."

"How can you be so goddamn _calm_?! Tell her to do it quick!" Sakura exclaimed.

After Sakura's words, the only thing that Kakashi could hear from the phone was gibberish stuttering. He couldn't even decipher Hinata's words on normal days, so what more if she talked in a more timid and in a panicked way?

"So then it's already filtered in?" Kakashi asked, cutting Hinata's little tirade. "We really need to hurry because we have a dying person in here."

"U-U-Um, yes sir!" Hinata squeaked.

This really was too much pressure on her shoulders. It didn't at all help that she'd gotten an earful from her father when she left home today. She knew that her father meant good. She just wished that he could've said it in a more, well, _fatherly _way. In a gentle and caring way suited for a parent.

Naruto felt a different kind of air filter in the room a few seconds later. The change between the air then and now really wasn't all that noticeable. Well, at least to him it wasn't. It was a requirement for his job. To be able to adapt quickly to different environments. To be able to breathe any kind of air no matter how many years it took for mankind to finally achieve breathing such things.

Rigorous training, of course, had been the solution.

Naruto found himself calming bit by bit as he saw Shikibu gradually stopping his – or her or whatever gender that little cross-dresser wanted to be acknowledged with – search for his own time frame's air. That had really been a close one.

He grabbed the phone from Kakashi's hand. With a grin on his face, despite knowing that Hinata would ultimately be unable to see him do so, he said, "Thanks a lot, Hinata-chan."

"You're... You're welcome, Naruto-kun!" Hinata managed to stutter out in a cheerful way.

Her whole face was on fire.

Naruto. She had just been useful to him.

Naruto gave back the phone to Kakashi so that the latter would be the one to end it. Then he looked at the currently unconscious Shikibu. The air mishap really could take quite a lot out of someone who wasn't used to it. Though it wasn't as if he was complaining. People were easier to deal with if they were knocked-out.

"We'll take care of him, Naruto," Kakashi said. "Time travel puts a strain on people."

"I know," Naruto muttered.

Time traveling was actually rather fun. The vortex that people went through were like a kaleidoscope. And Naruto happened to like pretty colors, too. But, well, when one managed to get back to their own time frame, they'd get the feeling as if they'd worked themselves black-and-blue. It was like jet lag. Except much worse.

"I think that you deserve your rest this time around, Naruto," Sakura stated as she checked Shikibu's vitals.

Naruto beamed.

"Really, Sakura-chan?" he asked.

Sakura hummed in agreement. The serious look on her face, however, did not fade. Work was work. But Naruto yipped anyway. It wasn't everyday that she said things like those.

"Now go and get your hard-earned rest, Naruto, or I'll consider tranquilizing you," she said.

"Yes, ma'am!" Naruto exclaimed.

He then bounded off to where his room was.

Sakura sighed. Some things never really did change.

* * *

"_If, you know, I never found out that you're actually a guy, I would've gone on thinking that you were a woman for the rest of my life," Naruto said one day._

_Sasuke's chopsticks stopped their ascent to his mouth which had, after Namikaze-sama had spoken, twisted into a frown. He wondered what the other could possibly be implying now. He had been relentlessly teased about his real gender by his husband after being found out. Of course, this was only done whenever they were alone. It seemed to Sasuke that his secret was in good hands._

_Namikaze-sama had been, surprisingly, okay about the whole ordeal. Very much okay. Which made Sasuke think just what kind of man had he married._

"_You resemble a woman just that much!" Naruto exclaimed, finding it a bit marvelous that he had an androgynous wifeband. "The perfect wife, even. Good looks, nice body, modest enough–" Sasuke frowned even more at that. He was not completely modest – a statement which he thought seemed to be a bit of a paradox in itself – yet? Naruto merely grinned. "–and there's a couple of interesting quirks, too. Eh, I think that the only bad thing about you is your housekeeping skills, but that's alright since I'm the best at that!"_

_Sasuke inwardly huffed – his miffed state somewhat escaped and made itself known on his face. Even if it was at housekeeping, he didn't like at all being beat by someone... someone as stupid or as odd as Namikaze-sama. Or just someone like the man._

_Or maybe Sasuke was just far too competitive._

"_You're better suited at being the woman, Namikaze-sama," Sasuke said, "since you keep house so well. Even better than I. Not to mention, I'm the more diplomatically well-off between the two of us."_

_Naruto pouted._

_Sasuke was more cunning. Better suited to being the head of some wealthy clan. He had the guts and the wits. He manipulated people – Naruto himself could be a fine proof of that. But the only problem with Sasuke was that he was Shikibu. Namikaze Shikibu. He was a she and there wasn't a lot that women could do._

_Perhaps his mother had been, once upon a time, subjected to such chauvinistic subjugation._

"_I liked you better when you were all 'your wish is my wish' and... all," Naruto said._

"_That could easily be arranged," Sasuke remarked._

"_On the second hand, don't."_

"_I thought you liked me portraying a common housewife."_

"_I like you better this way."_

"_You should make up your mind, Namikaze-sama."_

"_Yeah, yeah. I definitely like you better this way, you know? I feel as if... we're closer."_

_Naruto grinned at him._

"_Stop that," Sasuke said._

_Naruto just grinned some more. "Stop what?"_

_Sasuke's frown deepened and he averted his gaze from Naruto's face. He began to eat again._

_Stupid Namikaze-sama._

_And Naruto continued to smile like the idiot that he was, even as he ate._

* * *

When Sasuke came to, he found himself staring at a white ceiling. He could see that the place that he was in was new. There wasn't a single crack or chipped off paint to be seen on that ceiling. It was purely white. 

Despite Namikaze-sama having been dead for around a year – perhaps even more – Sasuke still recalled memories that he had of the blithering idiot. He closed his eyes.

Nothing could revive the dead.

When he opened his eyes, he surveyed his surroundings.

He was lying on a soft bed that seemed to be just as white as the ceiling above him. His head was resting on what seemed to be a pillow. A pillow that was just as soft, if not softer, than the bed. He was mildly surprised by this. He had heard that only foreign countries had pillows like those. Perhaps he was, then, not in Japan.

To the right of his bed was a table – it was at that point that he noticed that his bed was surrounded by railings that were _definitely_ not made of wood – and on that table was a small contraption. Extending from that aforementioned contraption – which was made of some sort of material that Sasuke had yet to encounter in his life – was a small... tube that went under the blanket that was on him. It was then that he saw that the tube was connected to him. To his arm, to be more exact.

He was horrified, his wide eyes had somewhat shown that, but he dared not yank the tube off his arm. It seemed as if it went _through_ his skin and pulling it off might make things bad for him.

Everything was new to him. What foreign land had he managed to land into?

He instantly blamed that blond – _'He isn't Namikaze-sama,'_ he thought – that had, for lack of a better term, kidnapped him. Though he had the faintest feeling that he should thank that boy.

But Uchiha Sasuke was not one to easily give out gratitude to people, much less complete strangers.

He frowned some more. It was the only thing he could do to voice out his displeasure. He certainly wouldn't want to get out of the bed as who knew what would happen to him if he did so. He also wouldn't want to cry out for help because that was something girly and, as supposedly girly as he was, Sasuke was a man. A man with pride.

His brows knotted as he thought of a way to escape.

Just when he thought that he'd come to a grand conclusion, he was rudely interrupted by someone knocking on the door. He scowled as all his thoughts quickly fled from his mind.

Why was it that such things easily went away when they needed to stay?

The door soon opened and a pink-haired girl went in. Her eyes were green and there was a smile on her face. She looked like quite the happy person.

Sasuke looked at Sakura. His eyes stayed the longest on her hair. And she noticed.

She nervously laughed. She raked her hair with her hand.

"I know. Weird color, right?" she asked. "But it's a bit common nowadays. New genes and all."

Sasuke blinked. Confusion slowly seeped into his face, though he'd managed to school his features before it became far too evident.

"But I'm sure that you didn't understand what I said. After all, I don't think that anyone studied genes in your time," Sakura continued.

When she received no response from him after a few minutes or so, she began to wonder if the other was deaf or couldn't speak.

"He can't understand you, Sakura," Kakashi said as he entered the room. He was holding and reading a bright orange book – this made her sigh as it seemed as if he was never without porn in his hands. "You're talking _our_ lingo. He came from more than a century ago."

"Of course," Sakura said, a light tone of pink dusting her cheeks. "I had forgotten that."

Kakashi nodded.

"It's understandable. He looks like us," he said, "but he's not quite like us either."

"I don't have x-ray eyes, Kakashi-sensei," she said.

Sakura had always been fond of medical equipment and everything else related to medicine, obsolete or not.

"We should probably put in a communication barrier," Kakashi spoke in a thoughtful note. "But then, just getting Naruto would be cheaper. It wouldn't even cost a thing."

Naruto had a communication barrier with him all the time. He needed it for his line of work. In their team, he was often the one who got to travel through time the most. Kakashi was more needed inside the building. Sakura-chan was an indispensable healer. Naruto was just Naruto.

Sakura sighed. Kakashi-sensei, it seemed, would never change from being a miser.

Kakashi took out his phone and began to dial Naruto's number. He put the earpiece against his ear, but after a couple of seconds, decided on not doing so. He looked rather funny holding his cellphone from a distance. It was for precautionary measures. When Naruto was tired, he came off as "scary as hell."

The phone had rung five times before there was a "Who the fuck are you and tell me what you want in five seconds or I'm hanging up." It sounded a bit slurred and rather low. The voice also had a tint of_ticked off _in it.

Kakashi held his urge to chuckle. He would do that later.

"We need you now, Naruto," he said.

"I thought I was supposed to rest!" Naruto objected.

"Well, you can rest after this. I'll even give you the day off tomorrow."

"But tomorrow _is_ my day off!"

"I'll take your day off then. Will you come now? It's pretty urgent."

Kakashi heard the rustling of sheets. Mission accomplished.

"Why do you even need me there?" Naruto asked with a grumble.

"That's top secret. Come here first," Kakashi said.

"... Sensei, I don't know where you are."

"At the hospital area. Room..." Kakashi then looked at Sakura.

She sighed and uttered, "Fourteen, Section C."

"You got that, didn't you, Naruto?"

"I did, I did."

"I expect you to be here in... around ten minutes."

Naruto became silent. Then erupted a loud, "WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM? A MIRACLE WORKER?" from the phone.

"No, I think you're Elijah, Naruto. Ten minutes."

"I can't do that!"

"You can do anything if you set your mind to it."

"Seriously, Kakashi-sensei, cut me some slack!"

"Ten minutes. Or half the paycheck for this month."

"WHAT?!"

"Bye, Naruto."

"BUT –"

Kakashi closed his phone and put it in his pocket. He proceeded to continue reading the book in his hands. Problem solved, money saved. Life was a-okay.

"Kakashi-sensei, has anyone ever told you that you're mean?" Sakura asked.

He looked at her and smiled. Or at least she thought that she smiled if that look on the only part of his face that could be seen was any indication of what he was doing behind that eye patch and abnormally large scarf (which covered half of his face).

"Of course. Everyone tells me that," he said.

"I should've known," she muttered.

"I never would've expected anything less."

Kakashi leaned on the wall beside the doorknob and read his book. Sakura shook her head before she took a seat on the chair near the bed. She looked at Sasuke who looked back at her.

The two of them continued staring at each other – Kakashi noted that it looked _creepy_ – until Naruto slammed the door open. The door knob hit the wall. It ricocheted. And the door ended up hitting Naruto. This caused him to fall flat on his butt. And Kakashi, after he closed his book and put it in his back pocket, even had the gall to laugh.

"Go to hell, Kakashi," Naruto muttered as he rubbed his sore nose and stood up from the ground.

He walked to where Sakura was and asked her what the matter was. Sakura fidgeted a bit before she nervously smiled. Naruto truly was scary when he'd been woken up in such a manner.

"Kakashi-sensei, why don't you tell him now?" Sakura asked.

Kakashi hummed in agreement. "Set your communication barrier, Naruto. We need it."

There was a long and seemingly endless period of silence before Naruto screamed, "You woke me up just for this?! The department could've settled this easily!"

"But you know that that's expensive."

"It's for a job! It should be free or it should have a discount or something!"

Kakashi chuckled. "If that was allowed, I'd probably be a millionaire right now. Half of my pay check goes to them for the communication services. They charge everyone. The costs of maintaining a barrier are so high that even our company can't retain it on their own."

Naruto angrily raked his hand through his hair. He let out a frustrated, guttural noise, too. He put his hand in his pocket and fished out a thick, short metal tube. He pressed one of the buttons on it. Its top opened and then it started to glow.

"There, all done," he grumbled.

Kakashi presumably smiled at him.

"You can go and sleep on the couch there," Kakashi said, his tone light and gay.

Naruto was not one to argue about where he could lie down. As long as he could sleep, it was okay. He threw the tube at Kakashi, who deftly caught it with one hand, marched to where the aforementioned couch was, and then plopped on it. He made himself comfortable. Soon enough, light snores could be heard from him.

Sasuke stared at Naruto. The blond... could sleep fast... _too_.

"Shikibu-san," Sakura started.

Sasuke focused his gaze on her. That was much better. He could understand her now. He was not one to question things like those, especially since he seemed to have landed in such an odd place. Most of the logic he'd been accustomed to did not seem to work at all in this place.

Pink hair certainly didn't appear from where he came from.

"My name is Haruno Sakura," she continued. A smile bloomed on her face. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

She extended a hand. Common courtesies, after all. Sasuke did not, however, shake her hand. She put her hand on her lap after a while.

Conversing might come off as rather hard.

"It's nice to meet you, too," Sasuke spoke a few minutes later.

He bowed his head. Sakura blinked. Oh, right. Different times, different cultures.

When he looked back at her, she began to talk again. "I would love to tell you everything about your circumstance right now, Shikibu-san, but I'm afraid that that might wait until you're all better. I'm sure that you won't like the technicalities since you're still resting and getting accommodated to your surroundings."

She paused. He nodded to show that he was listening and could understand her.

She was a bit surprised. He was really good at adapting.

"Yes, well," she continued. "We just came here to check whether or not you're alright."

"I am," Sasuke said.

"That's good to hear."

"We wouldn't want to lose someone as special as you," Kakashi spoke.

Sasuke and Sakura looked at Kakashi.

Sakura's brows were furrowed. Kakashi was going to go right ahead into the mission. And without letting the translator rest, too. Slave driver. That was what Kakashi was and would ultimately be in Sakura's – and perhaps also Naruto's – eyes.

"We've brought you here for you to translate something," Kakashi said.

"What is this something?" Sasuke asked.

"It's related to your husband."

Sasuke pursed his lips for a bit before asking, "Why did you not bring Namikaze-sama here instead of me?"

"Bringing him here, unfortunately, would be more risky."

Sasuke didn't at all understand the works of those words, so he'd just nodded his head.

Sakura, however, felt something fishy. She looked at Kakashi, her eyes accusing.

Kakashi stepped closer to Sasuke. He pulled something out of a bag Sakura hadn't noticed he'd brought. It was a rather larg and thick frame. Sakura blinked. Then her eyes widened in recognition. It was the frame where the tablet they were to translate was.

Before she could intervene, he had already given it to Sasuke who took it.

"Oh... this..." Sasuke said.

One of his hands clutched the frame even more, while the other one's fingers traced the characters. He could feel the smooth glass. Oh how he longed to touch the slab's texture, to touch the characters etched on it.

"Can you read it?" Sakura asked.

"It's..." Sasuke started to say. "This is something that Namikaze-sama taught me to read."

And he was the only person Namikaze-sama had taught to read those particular characters.

Sakura felt awkward. Based on the books she'd read, his husband had died in a war quite near the time that Naruto had gone off to take him to the future.

"Could you summarize what it means?" Kakashi asked after a while of silence.

Sakura felt the urge to punch the living daylights out of Kakashi. Sasuke was obviously undergoing some painful memories.

After all, it wasn't all that hard to see that Sasuke had loved the man he'd been married to.

Sakura was a woman. And she could just feel it.


	3. Chapter 3

And we have a miraculous update! Feel free to shoot me for taking far too long. (And I've yet to come up with a halfway decent reply other than letting RL pwn me.)

This chapter was beta-ed/beta'd/betaed by Kaikouken. (I'm really grateful that she helped sort out some of the issues in here.)

So, ah, um. Thank you to all who're still sticking to this story despite the horrible update schedule and to those giving this story a chance.

Crit, comments, or reviews are all very much appreciated as they help fix any disturbance in the writing.

* * *

**Chapter 3 - These People**

"Sasuke," Naruto sang. "Come here. I have something to teach you."

Sasuke stopped preparing their afternoon tea to look at Naruto.

The man was sitting near the low dining table they'd come to know as their tea table — there were just far too many tables where they lived and he got off on naming their tables to lessen the confusion whenever anyone told someone to else to go to so and so table in order for so and so event — with his characteristic bright grin aimed at Sasuke.

"What is it, Namikaze-sama?" Sasuke asked, continuing the tea preparation afterwards.

"I invented a new form of writing!" Naruto said, puffing his chest out in pride despite knowing that Sasuke couldn't see it. "And what did I tell you about my name?"

Even after they'd been married for more than quite a bit, Sasuke still refused to call him Naruto. It was a pet peeve and Naruto had been trying to get the other to get out of the habit of calling him Namikaze-sama in vain.

_Namikaze-sama_ made him think of his father and that was _not cool_ at all because he was more awesome and, well, younger. Then again, everyone had always said that he thought oddly. That his thoughts were far too _revolutionized_.

Sasuke resisted the urge to sigh. It wouldn't be like him, like a wife, to blatantly contradict his husband's wishes. Though, being stubborn like most Uchiha, he refused to be so informal with his husband. It was impolite and unheard of.

"I'll be right there then, Namikaze-sama," Sasuke could hear Naruto complain about the name yet again, "after I finish making our tea."

It was around five minutes later when Sasuke found himself sitting adjacent Naruto with a teacup in his hands, a somewhat inquisitive and expectant look on his face as he stared at his husband and the mountains of scrolls surrounding the latter.

Naruto, with a mouth grinning like there was no tomorrow and eyes twinkling as if he'd just done the best thing imaginable, plucked a nearby scroll and opened it. He pushed it toward Sasuke and implored the other to peruse it.

Try as he might, Sasuke couldn't at all understand what was written on the scroll. If anything, it looked like a jumble of characters. It seemed like a mix of languages.

He looked up at Naruto, quirking up an eyebrow as he did so.

"Isn't it ingenious?" Naruto asked. "Sasuke, you're now looking at the inventor of a full-fledged language! None of that secret friend-friend code thing, either! I dreamed about everything last night. The grammar, how the syntaxes should work, and all that other stuff." His arms were practically flying everywhere as he wildly gesticulated _something_ which Sasuke couldn't understand at all.

"How nice then, Namikaze-sama," Sasuke said.

Naruto frowned at him. "You don't seem impressed."

"I am."

Naruto's frown deepened. "Really, Sasuke. You sound sarcastic. That's just mean."

Sasuke languidly sipped his tea before answering with, "You're only imagining things, Namikaze-sama."

"Come on, Sasuke! It's great! I made a new language in _one day_. Others took years. They were even a group of people!"

"Who will use your language then, Namikaze-sama?"

Naruto was quiet for a bit. His face donned a contemplative look. Then his visage brightened. "We could use it. It'll be our own little language!" He looked as excited as most children were before festivals. Despite being an _adult_, the look suited him.

Naruto was, as always, whimsical. Sasuke decided to humor him though. It was the job of a wifeband such as he. "Of course. Do try to enlighten me on the matter then."

Naruto had taken him seriously and was soon listening to the other's explanations about the _new-found_ language.

Sasuke had gotten interested for real somewhere in the middle of Naruto's explanations.

He asked questions and Naruto was more than glad enough to supply the answers.

By the end of the day, Sasuke found himself actually _writing_ a few of those characters. Naruto was complimenting him — the way he'd always wanted to be praised by his family, Shikibu name be damned — all the while and it was burning his ears. Though he could've gone without Naruto's hair mussing.

They never managed to finish the pot of tea Sasuke had prepared. It was left to cool all on its own.

* * *

Sakura bit her lip when Sasuke hadn't answered at all. His eyes were merely glued on that slab.

"You don't need to answer it _now_ of course," she said. "Kakashi-sensei was just, well, presenting you the question now so that you wouldn't be surprised by it when he asks it later on. It's, er, like preparing you for the future—"

"The slab says nothing of importance," Sasuke interjected. "It was written by Namikaze-sama as a joke. It's filled with fake prophecies, things he liked writing during his spare time."

"What does it say?" Kakashi asked yet again.

Sakura stared at him. Wasn't it obvious that Sasuke didn't want to talk about the past right now?

"Why are you so interested in it anyway?" Sasuke asked, looking at Kakashi.

Sakura wanted to know the answer to that, too. Kakashi, and every other individual that was well-informed about the matter, had been tight-lipped about the background of the tablet.

"It's supposed to be something of value," Kakashi replied; the best thing to do when the one being interrogated didn't want to answer was to give the person the answers to their own questions, all the while knowing that they might not really understand the answers in the end, "there are people after it, after all."

That tablet had been causing far too much ruckus that it couldn't just be fake prophecies.

"Namikaze-sama has an awful sense of humor," Sasuke said in a slightly sharp tone.

He clenched his hands. It wasn't that he was getting irritated by the man that endlessly asked him questions. He was getting irritated by the fact that Namikaze-sama could still make him feel. It was almost a year. He was sure that it was almost a year since Naruto died.

He shouldn't still be attached. He shouldn't.

He grit his teeth.

Sakura glared at Kakashi who continued to ignore her in favor of staring at Sasuke.

"This is enough," she angrily said as she glared at him. "We're leaving."

She turned to Sasuke and gave him an apologetic smile. She said in the gentlest voice she could, "We're sorry, Shikibu-san. It's been a rather hectic week and I think that it's beginning its toll on Kakashi-sensei."

Before either Sasuke or Kakashi could speak, Sakura had latched onto Kakashi's arm and dragged him out of the room. She closed the door behind her as softly as she could, given her current livid state.

Sasuke could hear bickering at the other side of the door.

Once he was assured that they wouldn't hear him or that they wouldn't be coming back inside the room soon, he violently flopped down on the bed, his frustration so evident that it was nearly as tangible as the sheets wrapped around him.

He wanted to thrash around or break anything within his arm's reach. He wanted to be improper, the very thing which he was instructed to never be by countless of teachers and Uchiha elders.

Only Naruto could make him want to be like that. Only Naruto. And it was vexing him beyond belief.

It didn't help that he was in some odd place he'd never encountered anywhere before, be it on books and scrolls from the library or on tongues of travelers and merchants.

Just when he was about to act upon his impulses, he heard a rather loud thud. He looked around the room to try and see if the cause of the noise was there. And indeed it was. It turned out to be the blond who was now lying, sleeping to be more exact, on the floor with his left arm and leg spread, the right side of his body somewhat draped on the couch a bit. A bit of drool was escaping his mouth.

Sasuke visibly cringed.

He shuddered when he heard the other give out a loud snore.

Utterly disgusting if he could say so himself.

He laid on the bed in a more passive way and looked at the ceiling, having decided that he should simply ignore those boorish snores. He could only wonder how he'd gotten himself into such a place and what exactly did these people want with Namikaze-sama's mindless drivel.

And why that blond over there looked far too much like Namikaze-sama for it to be a joke.

Sasuke wasn't laughing though.

He pursed his lips and inhaled a lungful of air. Before he released his lips from the confines of his mouth, he ground his lips with his teeth as hard as he could, as if the motion would bring him some sort of divine manifestation that would answer all of his questions.

Just _why_?

He pressed his cheek even more into that soft thing his head was lying on. He stared at the only door in the room. If he ignored the loud snores of the blond, he would have the peace and quiet that he honestly deserved. His mind was lost in thought for a while until he was forced back to reality when the door opened and more of that ungodly bright light seeped inside the room. He squinted his eyes only to see the form of the pink-haired girl.

She went inside the room and closed the door behind her. She smiled sheepishly at him again.

Sasuke sat up straight, not minding the slight pain he felt from doing so, and looked at her.

"I'm really sorry about Kakashi-sensei," she said. "He's really just a bit off today."

He nodded.

The room quieted again.

Sakura fidgeted some more before she moved closer to Sasuke and sat on the chair beside his bed. Somehow, being in the same room as him made her incredibly awkward, and everyone knew that Sakura just didn't _do_ awkward. The Sakura a couple of years ago might've, but not the her of today.

"So how are things?" she asked.

The only response Sasuke could come up with was to raise an eyebrow. How could he answer that if he'd only been awake for only a couple of minutes?

Sakura, with some of her nervousness seeping into the action, laughed and said, "Of course. I shouldn't have asked."

It was really hard maintaining a conversation with this person. That was the thought that instantly popped into her mind afterwards. Well, if she couldn't maintain any sort of decent, casual conversation with him, she might as well give him the important news. She didn't exactly like sounding like some stuttering idiot who babbled on and on about nothing.

"Oh, um, Shikibu-san, it seems as if, well—" Sakura started.

"What is it?" Sasuke asked. If he hadn't asked, he was sure that she would've continued stuttering for a while. Women were mostly like that.

Sakura twirled a lock of her hair. It was something she oft did when she was nervous; a habit, one might say. She smoothed the lock she was twirling when she noticed what she was doing and looked at him squarely in the eyes. "It seems as if you'll have to move out of this room as soon as possible. There was a bit of an information problem with the hospital's main desk and someone who needs this room more than you do has been assigned to it."

"I understand."

"The only problem is that we don't exactly know where to put you now."

It took around one minute of silence from Sasuke to make Sakura open her mouth to continue whatever she was going to say. But before she could even utter a word, a rather long and loud snore from Naruto interrupted her.

He was now lying face-down on the floor.

Sakura growled and kicked him. _Hard_. Her sudden shyness with Sasuke had made her very irritable. After all, it was an unknown and unwelcome occurrence as she was used to being comfortable and in command of the situation.

Naruto woke up with a jolt. He clambered to his feet and wildly looked around to see if there was any danger — it was in this instant that Sakura felt a bit of guilt; but she easily squished this feeling with the rather childish thought of '_He deserved it_'.

With such a wake-up call as a bone-breaking kick, Naruto thought that there had to be something up. Something worthy of his attention. When he deemed that, no, there was no fighting to be seen, he looked at Sakura and whined, "What?"

Sakura ignored the tic developing somewhere in her forehead and replied as sweetly as she could, "You'll be in charge of finding Shikibu-san a place to stay for the meanwhile."

"What?!"

"You heard me." Her voice suddenly had a dangerous edge to it.

Naruto gulped and violently nodded. "Whatever you say, ma'am."

"And don't call me that. That's _rude_."

Naruto blinked. Wasn't it supposed to be...?

_Women_. Naruto sighed. This was done in his head, of course.

Not that he would ever voice out his thoughts, of course. Sakura-chan really packed a mean punch. Not to mention he also really liked her and he wouldn't want her at all to be distressed or disturbed by any of the words he said — though he did do this subconsciously already; the good thing was that he didn't know the effect of what he was doing.

"You have only a couple of minutes left before a number of nurses claim this room as theirs again," Sakura said. "So think fast."

Naruto looked at Sasuke and frowned. Great ideas, at least for things like these, didn't come to him as fast as Sakura-chan probably wanted, so he'd only managed to think up of one, partially safe option.

And it wasn't exactly an option that he liked.

The things he did for his job and Sakura.

"I know a place," he slowly said.

"That's good!" Sakura chirped.

She looked at Sasuke and smiled at him. She said, "Naruto here will take good care of you, Shikibu-san. I'm sure that the place he's chosen won't disappoint at all." She knew that he was practically nobility from where he came from, so she thought that he would probably be picky.

The last thing they needed was to piss off the person whom Kakashi said was the _key_ to their current mission.

And the details to that aforementioned mission, she just remembered, hadn't exactly been divulged to her and Naruto completely and clearly.

She turned to Naruto again and said, "You make sure that he's safe, alright?"

"Count on me!" Naruto exclaimed.

She gave him a smile. Naruto was just so _endearing_.

"I'll be going ahead then," she said. "I need to have a talk with someone."

* * *

"So, yeah, Uzumaki Naruto, your awesome new roommate. Call me Naruto-sama and we'll get along reaaaal well, Shikibu," Naruto said with a grin on his face.

"Naruto," Sasuke said, ignoring Naruto's informal usage of his _name_.

"Right. Didn't even bother to humor me. Well, okay. Whatever you want."

Naruto was one of those sorts who turned out to be exceedingly chirpy after they had rested. It was almost as if nothing could anger or sadden him.

Sasuke frowned. But he couldn't call the blond _Naruto_.

"Uzumaki," he said.

"So, uh, really, dude, it's just a name. Don't let it get to your head and all. I know that it sounds weird and stuff, but that's my real name. Got it all up on my birth certificate and... stuff," Naruto said.

"How far are we from your home?" He had always been quick to avoid trivial conversation. Then again, he was also quick to chalk most topics up as trivial.

Why hadn't they exactly gotten out of this... hospital? That was the other, unsaid question that was tacked to the one he just asked. Hopefully, Naruto would impart him some wisdom to the structure of this odd building. Hopefully. But Sasuke wasn't expecting much from someone like that.

"Couple more minutes before we get to the living quarters. And then a few minutes after that before we actually reach my room." He put his hands on the back of his head and began a more carefree way of walking.

A way of walking which Sasuke didn't approve of at all. He didn't voice his opinion, though the grimace on his face was enough.

To avoid more annoyances on his part, he decided to look at his surroundings and, if possible, remember the path from Uzumaki's room to that room he'd previously stayed in. He wouldn't want to stay completely lost in such a weird place. Besides, there was the possibility that he'd find some sort of exit while he was journeying to the room he was to stay in.

He eyed the hallway they were walking along. Nothing but white walls with the occasional door which also looked as if it was a part of the wall. The walls, as preposterous and new to him as it seemed to have such walls _inside_ a building, were even more boring than the walls in his old home. It didn't at all help that the doors — though they had provided him a bit of an amusement as they just looked so _new_ to him, just like everything else in this weird building — were just as white as the walls and weren't vibrantly painted like the doors in his home.

Naruto glanced at Sasuke. Could anyone really stand to be quiet the way that guy did? Or maybe this was just an old person thing. He remembered that, when not provoked, Jiraiya and Tsunade could be like that, too.

"But, really, would it kill you to call me Naruto?" Naruto asked, deciding to break the silence himself as the other would never make a move to do so. "I mean, I'm even calling you by first name, I think, and it seems kinda odd that I'm the only one going by first name here."

"What if I don't just like your name?" Sasuke asked. "What if I don't like calling people by their surnames?"

Naruto glanced at him. "For someone who spent most of his time acting as a woman from the past, you sure are rude."

"Well, for someone from _the future_, you do seem stupid."

"Hey! Is that how you repay someone for their hospitality?!"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Hospitality? That pink-haired girl _forced_ you to provide some sort of temporary living arrangement for me. I would hardly call that hospitality. In fact, it seems as if you've even disregarded what she said as you're letting me loan your house."

"What is up with your _speech_? You sound like someone from the Senate or something!"

Sasuke gave Naruto a stare which effectively voiced that he didn't at all know what Naruto was talking about.

Naruto sighed — Sasuke felt compelled to give the other a glare; he did just that — and said, "Never mind. You just sound so... prim and proper. It's odd, man. I need to get you talking casual."

"Oh, so you would want me to talk barbaric just like you?" Sasuke scoffed. So what if he sounded _prim and proper_? It was how he was supposed to sound. He was a Namikaze, an _Uchiha_ better yet. They were, by default, supposed to be well-mannered as it was expected of people from a high social status. It would be scandalous if he started sounding like Uzumaki.

"Seriously, man, you're all grrr over me and I haven't even done anything to you!"

"Nothing but be yourself, of course."

Naruto stopped walking and whipped around to look at him. He glared at Sasuke. "And what's wrong about being myself?!"

Sasuke noted that the other seemed to be rather sensitive about topics like those. He would make sure to remember to mock Naruto with it sometime in the future again. That is, if they were to stay near each other for a while. "I could go on and on about it."

Naruto huffed and continued to walk to where his apartment was. Prissy guy from the past was a complete and utter bastard. Without even sounding as crude as most of his friends, too. Pshaw. Just because the wife or husband, or whatever the fuck he was to that Namikaze dude, of some high and mighty clan leader's son didn't mean he was above the rest of the world.

Naruto was not happy about his decision of letting such a guy stay with him.

Sakura-chan definitely owed him one.

Now, he would just have to formulate a plan as to how he could tell her that without managing to get himself beaten to a pulp.

He halted when he noticed that he'd already gone past his door. He went back a couple of steps and punched in some digits on the number pad that was right beside his door. He turned to Sasuke as the door slid open, noticing the other's astonished expression at the door opening automatically.

"Home sweet home for a while, bastard," Naruto said with a cheeky grin.

Sasuke stared at the room presented to him, seemingly shocked. Though why he looked as shocked as that was something Naruto missed.

"_Bastard_?" Sasuke asked, sounding a bit scandalized.

The two of them were quiet for a while. Sasuke was fuming and Naruto looked like he was contemplating something.

Naruto soon broke the silence yet again by laughing.


End file.
